Bangalore a crime hub: Kidney-transplantation racket busted

Bangalore, Jan 5: A police team on Jan 5 arrested seven persons for running a kidney transplantation racket, allegedly involving government officials and major hospitals in the city. Among those arrested are Ranjan, a revenue inspector, CD Shrikanth, a contract labourer in Food and Civil Supplies Office located at Magadi and five others including an agent, police said.

Ramanagara Superintendent of Police Anupam Agarwal on Jan 5 said that the probe team, set up to bust the racket, has exposed a kidney sale network thriving in and around Bangalore.

The initial breakthrough came on Dec 31, 2012 with the arrest of two persons who were allegedly engaged with the task of luring poor people to donate kidney for monetary benefits.

Documents pertaining to the transplantation of kidney and duplicate voter's identity cards were seized from them, he said. Agarwal said their interrogation led to the arrest of Shrikanth who was allegedly behind creating and providing fake documents for the kidney transplantation.

A computer, a scanner, a hard disk which was used to create duplicate voter ID were also seized, he added. Two more persons were also arrested on the same day. Agarwal said the racket involved getting the kidney transplantation done after getting approval by producing fake documents.

They collect between Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh from the recipient out of which only 10 to 20 per cent is given to the donor and the rest is distributed among agents, Agarwal said, adding, about 25 illegal kidney transplantations are suspected to have been done, Agarwal said.

Bangalore North taluk Revenue Inspector Ranjan and an agent Ananth were also arrested subsequently during investigation, Agarwal said. Investigation is on regarding the alleged involvement of authorities from various hospitals, he said.